Sunday, September 9, 2007

Memoirs of a Grocery Boy


My parents were Jesse and Rena Foust and I was born in Cedar Vale in 1935. My birthplace was in a small house across from the old high school and the attending physician was L. Claire Hays. It was told me that I was a "breech baby" and that I weighed close to twelve pounds. Dr. Hays was an excellent doctor/businessman and it is felt that he was an important contributor to the excellence of Cedar Vale during his years.

Dad worked as the bookkeeper at the Radcliff Ford Agency and was later transferred to their firm in Fort Scott. Relatives that lived in the Cedar Vale area were my grandparents, Phil and Laura Foust, Uncle Dale and Aunt June Foust, and cousins Judy, Mike, and Joe Foust. The Wesbrooks were related through Great-Grandmother Jessie Wesbrook and Grandmother Laura Wesbrook Foust. Bessie Foust Lefler was related through her family connection to Grandfather Phil Foust.

After being born, living for awhile, and then moving from Cedar Vale ... I reunited with the town in 1949. My first re-connection was playing my trombone with a group from Winfield promoting the celebration of their town's 75th anniversary. That fall my dad took over his duties as the Mobil Bulk Agent from Virgil Hill. In October 1948 I transferred from Winfield to start at CV Grade School as an 8th grader. My teacher was John Morton and some of my classmates were Tommy Gordon, Dolores Hall, Donna Champlin, Shirley Sweaney, Tom Randel, Bertle Gurskey, and Myrna Cable.

Realistically, it might be said that I was a better employee than I was a student. My first job (other than mowing lawns) was for the grocery store of Mr. Woodruff. He later sold the business to Charley Fields and I worked for Charley awhile before being hired by Maurice Smith to work for L. C. Adams. Don Shaffer was the other young person working at the store. Art Hassard was the meat cutter and "Squeaky" Richardson was the produce/delivery man. During this time eggs were brought to the store by ladies in trade for groceries. One of my many jobs was to transfer the eggs from the incoming crate to the larger crates resold later to a produce firm. Although pre-packaged foods were starting to be popular several products still arrived in bulk. For instance, potatoes and dry beans would come to the store in bulk to be packaged. A vinegar barrel would be "out back" to fill the glass containers of the customers. The meat was cut in an area with the floor thickly covered with sawdust. The experience of working at the store and the positive influences of Woodruff, Fields, and Smith along with Hubert and Harold Cox may have influenced me to later purchase a small grocery.

My favorite high school teacher was Mr. Humble (who taught English prior to being an administrator). English was not a favorite subject but Mr. Humble was such an outstanding instructor that I enjoyed his class. Certainly the science class of Mr. Beggs was not high on my list but I enjoyed his band. As a quite young man "starting from scratch" Beggs produced a quite good band especially for the school size which I believe at it's peak was just under 150 for the four grades. Don Shaffer was possibly the best musician during that era of our school though there was no dearth of talent of both instrumental and vocal music. Thinking back, I still remember the enchanting voice of Nadine Stanhope as she sang "You're Not Sick-You're Just in Love" during an assembly. Cedar Vale had some outstanding athletes during those years. Especially remembered was the undefeated and #1 ranked basketball team of the early '50s that suffered their only defeat in the state tournament at Hutchinson. It is my opinion that Jimmy Hill was the best athlete of the era as I recall him winning state gold medals in both high jump and long jump. At the same time, it is difficult to forget the outstanding efforts of the entire football team of '48 as they kept at bay the Blue Devils in Sedan in a epic Thanksgiving Day struggle. Cecil Humphries was the coach and I don't remember that he was ever quite successfully replaced. The most intelligent person in our school may have been Bertle Gurskey. Actually, people of intelligence didn't necessarily gravitate toward me so perhaps I should mention Bertle as being the smartest person of which I was aware? The girl with the most personality in my point of view was Janice Stone with another Janice (Sartin) being the most silly.

The hospital at Cedar Vale was outstanding and was the envy of the area. Dr. Hays was "on the cutting edge" as was his staff and facility. Dr. Walker was another fine physician and the Drs. Stone "filled" dental needs (albeit not exactly painless) while Dr. Wicks was the town chiropractor. Large employers besides the hospital were Caney Valley Electric and the school system. Among the businesses were the Ford, General Motors, and Chrysler dealerships while John Deere was among the farm implement firms. Several basic food eateries maintained addresses in the town including my five star rated "Herb's" and the popular "Hilltop Cafe". A growing bank, jewelry store, and an active livestock sale barn were available along with two drug stores (with Mrs. Whitney almost counting as a third physician). L. C. Adams was a large retail center with departments including grocery, hardware, men's and women's clothing, feed, mortuary, grain elevators, and other business venues. The town of cedars also had a fine lumber yard, hardware store, cleaners, saddle shop, blacksmith, and a bevy of grocery stores available for daily needs. A movie theatre featuring live rat auxiliary entertainment, pool hall, beer joint, liquor store, and hotel provided travelers with somewhat of a diversion. Mobil, Standard, and Skelly were major fuel marketers along with several others. Cedar Vale had an active produce market and a fortune teller. Other firms were a haberdashery, variety store, construction firms, barber and beauty shops, and most likely several firms without recall.

To this day, Cedar Vale is remembered by me to have been an almost ideal small community. The history of Cedar Vale is even more interesting than similar small towns of Kansas with it's early cattle town days and the story of the communal living folks, (with my memory of them being from Russia). Perhaps Gary or another of the historians on board can illuminate a bit of said early history.

In 1952 our family moved to Dexter which was a fine community without the population base nor the school size (at that time) of Cedar Vale. Nevertheless, I enjoyed their school system and student friends as they made me feel quite at home after transferring during my senior year. It was bittersweet competing against Cedar Vale but we were able to defeat the Broncos rather handily in both basketball and baseball.

After serving in the Air Force and marrying Pat Oltjen we brought our small son Graham to Cedar Vale in 1957 and I starting working for Ray Oltjen at the bank. We rented the small stone house located at the acreage of Dr. Hays. Cedar Vale was beginning to change but it was still an outstanding town. Our son Vince was born at the hospital and Graham started school across the street from my grandfather's house. We very much enjoyed our life in Cedar Vale and it saddened us to heed the realized necessity of no longer working at the bank but to find employment elsewhere.

Certainly, I can remember having a positive vision for the future of Cedar Vale during this time. Sadly, my move from the community stopped me from doing my part to work toward keeping and maintaining an idealistic small town. Possibly, none of the residents then could have made a difference toward perhaps an inevitable decline. At the same time, I have always thought that a small town could survive and thrive if the citizenry deemed it worthwhile to sacrifice and work together toward that end. An example, (I believe), is Caldwell which is located near Wellington and is an old cow town. My guess is that Caldwell was similar in size to Cedar Vale in the '40s and '50s but has seemingly successfully dedicated itself to survival and viability. Cedar Vale has had the disadvantage of strong negative economic factors and possibly a lack of workable ideas for preservation and development. It might be said that working together as a community was the best antidote for the economic decline of small towns as they moved toward and into the 21st century.

My thanks to Gary White,Wayne Woodruff, and Don Cox along with other contributors in bringing together their memories of life in Cedar Vale some 50/60 years ago. A special thanks to Gary for initiating and maintaining this form of communication.

7 comments:

Unknown said...

Phil, You mentioned jewelry store and a mortuary. As I recall there was Adam's Mortuary, but was there not also one down across from your house in CV? To which jewelry store were you referring?? I really enjoyed the review of your life. I always wanted to "buddy up" to you because I loved your sister, but she married Gary Jellison instead. Oh, well.

Gary White said...

Phil, Thanks for your contribution, which I really enjoyed. I had forgotten that you married Pat Oltjen. Say hello for me and show her the piece called Free Enterprise on this blog. I wonder if she is still mad at me for printing the photos of her slumber party!

Phil Foust said...

Wayne, the jewelry store was up the street from the city office. Yes, later there was a mortuary across from our house in the old Baird home.

Phil Foust said...

Gary, Pat doesn't remember the incident but most certainly she would smile of the memory.

DFCox said...

Your jeweler was E. J. Clark and he was an excellent Clock and watch repairman also.

My Father, Hubert was the one who bought the Baird residence and made it a funeral home. As I remember he had to borrow Money from Mike Meldrum, who was related to Olive Baird. I remember my mother's relief when the final payment was made on the loan. DFCox

Unknown said...

It must have been during the summer of 1953 that I was mowing lawns, and the Baird home was one of my customers. I liked to mow there because it was across the street from Jess Foust' home, and I thought I might get a glimse of his beautiful 13 year old daughter.

DFCox said...

Phil, you mentioned the Turkey Day Game of '49. I played in that and as I remember we battled to 0 to 0 tie with Sedan. Since we were underdogs I guess you might call it a victory. It caused Sedan to share the league title which would have been theirs alone with a victory. DFCox